Breaking News

Editorials

Embracing new roles and new shoes to fill

State Rep. Don Jones, R-95th Dist., has been tapped by the president to become the state executive director for the Ohio Farm Service Agency under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jones has already been a fighter for farmers, sponsoring legislation that helped support them with funding after severe drought; and improving laws to address the harm done to the state’s livestock industry by feral swine. Now he has a chance to embrace a new role in that fight. “The 95th District may have changed its configuration since my beginning in 2019, but one thing has remained the same — ...

Improving investigation

Government work groups and task forces don’t always come up with effective solutions (ask the Ohio Redistricting Commission), but the Ohio Missing Persons Working Group appears to have come up with some solid ideas to improve missing persons investigations in the state. In fact, according to a report by the Dayton Daily News, Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson announced 18 areas of improvement in matters such as communication between law enforcement and family members, sharing of information among law enforcement agencies, training and ...

Some things sound better on paper

Sometimes legislative proposals sound great on the surface — after all, the people who come up with names such as the “Ohio Property Protection Act” are hoping to persuade others to vote for it. But a deeper dive brings up serious questions. Ohio House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 88 are similar versions of the Ohio Property Protection Act, which would “modify the law that prohibits certain governments, businesses and individuals from acquiring certain real property.” Among the stated goals of the bills are to prohibit foreign adversaries from being able to own land within 25 ...

The need to prevent such disasters

Norfolk Southern says it still expects site restoration in East Palestine to be “substantially complete by early/mid June.” This despite additional monitoring wells being installed as recently as the end of March, and sediment and surface water monitoring that continues to show evidence of the catastrophic derailment that occurred there more than two years ago. Charts made available by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show there is still visible sheen on affected waterways — in fact, instances of heavy sheen being observed as late as April in part of Sulphur ...

Tune in to water safety

Most of us understand and follow the rules when it comes to keeping our phones out of our hands and remaining focused when we drive. But those little devices can distract us at other potentially dangerous times, too. How many times have you been puttering through a parking lot, only to have to slam on your brakes when a person with their eyes buried in their cell phones walks in front of you? Or, how many times have you been asked to watch pets or children — perhaps at a park — and gotten sucked into scrolling on your phone only to be jolted back to reality just in time to prevent ...

A real improvement

U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, signed on last week to be a cosponsor of a bill that would recognize May as National Foster Care Month. That resolution later passed. He was not alone, of course, in addition to sponsors Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., there were 14 cosponsors for the bill. It’s a sign of how important most senators understand our foster care system is. “Loving foster families offer stability and guidance when kids may need it most. My parents adopted me from foster care. I’ve seen how transformational a child’s first years of life can ...